


Goodbye, Dolly

by cybergirl614



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dolores Umbridge is Her Own Warning, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Yes even she gets her own backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:40:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29346765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cybergirl614/pseuds/cybergirl614
Summary: Dolores Umbridge, believe it or not, was once a child, too...
Comments: 11
Kudos: 17
Collections: A Riddikulus Flash Competition





	Goodbye, Dolly

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [RiddikulusComp](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/RiddikulusComp) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> One of Umbridge's Kitten Plates (thing)

The young witch was sitting on her swing in the garden when her father came up. 

“How’s my bestest little princess?” he called. 

“I’m very well, Father.” she responded, all giggles and smiles. Her father gazed down fondly on her, curly brown hair with little freckles dotting her cheeks. 

“Well well, Dolly, what should I say before I go?” 

“You needn’t say anything,” she murmured, suddenly forlorn. 

“Well? What do you mean by that?”

“I--I mean, Mother won’t be pleased to hear you call me ‘Dolly’.” She thought but didn’t say, Don’t leave me alone with her. Please? 

“Well, ‘tis your name is it not?”

“Mother thinks you should say the whole thing. Never be ‘pertinent, she says.” 

“Impertinent?” Mr. Umbridge asked. “Well I shall have words with her, if that is what she thinks of your nickname.”

“Please don’t, Papa.” 

“Why shouldn’t I? You ought to be able to have a nickname, especially one I gave you. Your mother needs to let you be a child. You aren’t a soldier, after all. Now don’t look so sad; I got you something to remind you of me while I’m gone.” 

Her father held out a little golden parcel wrapped with green ribbon. Dolly took it happily, adoring the little trinket inside: a decorative kitten plate, with a moving kitty on it. She hugged it to her chest and ran to put it away in her room.

_________________

Dolores would long remember the seemingly trivial little exchange with her father and what thereafter he did to try to make her happy. Happiness was an odd thing for her. So seldom did she find this ephemeral creature, that it seemed almost legend. 

As a diplomat, Mr. Umbridge was often away at work, and it just happened that the bulk of her hard-won happiness was to be had with him. Her mother was...well, her mother. Her father was a kind man; though his work often kept him abroad.. Each time he left, he gifted his little princess with a new little plate, each similar to the first, all in varied shades of pink and with kittens on them. Consequently, Mrs. Umbridge was the primary parental figure in her life, certainly the enforcer of her own draconian expectations. 

As an older teen, she incurred her mother’s wrath. By now, Mr. Umbridge was deceased, leaving her alone with her mother, as her elder brother had long ago moved away. She was currently trying to explain her plans for after Hogwarts to her mother. 

“I shall do a year abroad studying at Durmstrang, to learn the unique ways of the Nordic wizards,” she said, eyes flashing with enthusiasm at the idea of studying such power. 

“You shall do no such thing!” Mrs. Umbridge shouted. “No daughter of mine shall be gallivanting off in foreign lands in search of such absurdities as that. You shall find a husband and be married as soon as you turn 17. That is the end of that.”

“I shan’t marry, I can’t! Mother, I’m hardly 16!” She cried. 

“A woman’s place is in the home. Anything less is failure. I shall not stand by while you entertain such notions of far-flung power.”

“Oh, please! Give me an opportunity to fail,” Dolores said. “I promise my corpse won’t interrupt your ‘I told you so’ speech.” She rolled her eyes.

“If you must, I suppose you may go ahead and fail on your own terms,” her mother said harshly. “Get your trunk. Hogwarts can have you back early seeing as you so disrespect me. I shall not suffer being dishonoured by such an ungrateful wretch as you. Out of my house, never come back!” 

Shock gave way to dread as she watched Mother summon her trunk and traveling cloak, throwing them at her. Mother then summoned her kitty plates, viciously smashing each one by one--Dolly cried out in anguish, desperately trying to save any from her mother’s cruel grasp. Alas, only one was able to be saved, hidden in her pocket as Mother reveled in destroying dreams, one plate at a time.

Dolly put on her cloak before leaving the house, tears streaming freely now. Her mother summoned the Knight Bus, and she barely managed to hold in her inner torment as she told the driver, “Hogsmeade.” 

Dolly never saw her childhood home again; her mother stood firm in this. And with the destruction of her and her father’s ritual, her identity as Dolly died as well. 

Now, she was just Dolores, a young woman forced to go to work for the Ministry immediately upon graduation, dreams of far-off places merely a distant memory. She clawed her way up the bureaucracy, growing ever more bitter with each passing day. The only companion she had was Mr. Whiskers, as she had come to call the sole remaining cat plate. It took years for her to begin to re-amass her collection. 

Though the plates could be replaced, her childhood dreams couldn’t. Never would the world know the person she might have become, if she had only been allowed to remain Dolly.

____

So very many years later, the only vestiges of her former self that remained could be detected when she looked at the kitten plates. So she put them in her new office, as DADA instructor and later as Headmistress, to remind her of how precious the minds of little Purebloods were. 

She must act as a corrective influence on those drawn astray by Potter and the like, teaching lessons in morality and the importance of purity so that they could remain as innocent as the children they were. She embraced the same sort of disciplinarian style as her mother, harsh corrective action taken with the underlying belief of her true purpose; redemption of little lost souls. She’d been a little lost soul herself, too blinded by youthful fervor to appreciate the wisdom of things her mother tried to impart. If she’d only listened, she’d have enjoyed the Umbridge fortune, and never had to work as a drudge for the Ministry!

Every time she looked at the pink kitten plates, she resolved anew to be such a force in a child’s life. Anyone she helped was an effort well-spent. Who cared if helping involved spilling a little blood? Better to spill a little blood with a silly quill than wait for death or destruction by the Dark Lord’s hand. Those ungrateful children would simply never understand what she was trying to do for them. 

After one long evening, she gazed up at her kitty plate, the first one from her father, telling it in a conspiratorial whisper, “It’s just you and me, Mr. Whiskers. We shall change the world for these foolish children, one detention at a time.” She winked to it, for it was her only companion. 

And if she was totally honest, she thought it winked back.


End file.
